Push and Pull
by ILoveThesePeople
Summary: He needed Merlin, always would. But he wanted her and it caused it all to fall around him. Modern!AU


**Author: ILoveThesePeople**

**Word Count: 1,953 **

**Rating: T**

**Genre: Angst/Hurt/Comfort/Romance**

**Pairings: Arthur/Merlin, Arthur/Gwen, (One-sided?) Lancelot/Merlin. **

**Appearances by: Arthur, Merlin, Gwen, Lancelot, Morgana, Leon, Great Dragon (Drake,) Will, Nimueh, and Mordred.**

**Warnings: Slash, Modern!AU, cheating, **_**really **_**non-descriptive sex, boy kissing, all around general angst.**

**Summary: He needed Merlin, always would. But he wanted her and it caused it all to fall around him. Modern!AU **

**A/N: I'm not too happy with this, but it was the best I could do. I have a million of unfinished stories on my desktop and this was the only one I truly had enough inspiration for to write more than two paragraphs. I hope you guys enjoy it anyway, despite my complete dry spell. **

_(They're fifteen when they first see each other and there's nothing but yelled words of anger and almost, not quiet hate that leaves them panting and flushed and glaring. It's not an omen, despite how things ended. Simply inevitable, like two unstoppable objects colliding.)_

Gwen is soft and humble, a light that finds its way through the darkest of storms. She is all freckles and curls, dark skin smooth against his palm. In the morning when they wake they say nothing. Maybe it was because there was nothing to say. Maybe it's because in the late of night all their guilt was mouthed onto the other's skin. Either way it is not mentioned again, until it is, but everything was in shambles long before that happened anyway.

_(A petty grudge is stretched out for a month, smothered laughs and concealed grins filling the days until even they forget what it was they were angered about for so long. Maybe it was then they decided their fate of push and pull, back and forth. They don't really know and they don't allow themselves to ponder on it for long.)_

Touches are adverted, eyes unmet, until sometimes they wonder if they even truly saw each other anymore. Thoughts are screened until their minds are almost blank from the aftermath and sometimes, when the weight of the guilt is too much, they allow themselves to pretend that there was nothing behind that night. Then they choose the wrong moment, a small mistake in the midst of hundreds of corrections, and their eyes meet. Honey brown meet azure blue and then there is no stopping it, not really. Finally they don't try to stop it, instead simply conceal it better. They never speak a word to about it and Arthur thinks everything might be all right.

_(Their first kiss is during a festival, the night sky practically smothered out of sight by the flashing lights and towering rides. They had snuck off, voices hushed in the midst of yelled laughter. Lips met hesitantly and the night passed in a drunken blur. Both remembered words spoken almost reverently in the night, whispered words against spans of skin. Neither know what was truly said, yet they both knew it wasn't shame or regret. It's ironic, in truth, though neither dare do more than think so. )_

It all begins to crash around them in a relatively simple way, really. Nights too long, conversations unheard, discontent unnoticed. It starts with yelled words and déjà vu surrounds him for a second, suffocating as suddenly he's fifteen again. When is passes suddenly he _sees _it, so clearly he wonders how he hadn't noticed before. Bags form under sapphire blue eyes and black hair is astray, tugged and pulled at so much he wonders momentarily if it will always remain as such. There's no longer a smile waiting to be pulled at his partner's lips and he wonders how long it has been gone, why he didn't notice. He wants to leave, wants to go back into that bubble of ignorance where everyone was happy. He doesn't get a chance to, though, for suddenly Merlin's gone and somehow that is worse. Gwen is waiting for him when he arrives at her flat and somehow words of _No more, we have to stop _transform into _Oh god, please, more._

_(They announce it to the world- their world at least, if not the whole one- when they turn eighteen. Three years of friendship and one of something he could almost call love and they were ready. They wished each other luck with gentle kisses pressed to corners of lips and gave comfort with a squeeze of a hand and suddenly, it wasn't a terrifying experience as they had thought.)_

Merlin doesn't know, not really, but sometimes Arthur wishes he did. Wishes that when he leaned in for a kiss that he still longed for, still neededMerlin would pull away or turn his head. Maybe that would abate the guilt, or maybe it simply made him out to be a masochistic. Honestly he did not know and maybe it was better that way, simply another half asked question thrown into a pile of others much more serious. Like _Will I always want her? _and _Will I always need him? _ He forgets at times that Merlin not knowing is supposed to be helpful because even as he remains ignorant Merlin is not happy with what _they_ are now. Arthur, truthfully, cannot blame him.

_(They move in together when they're twenty. It's a simple flat, close to the campus and next to a string of shops and restaurants that come in use during nights of nothing but studying and the gentle thrum of music that keeps them from drifting too far into their respective books. It's impossibly small compared to where Arthur previously live, the well renowned Pendragon Mansion, yet it is theirs and almost impossible comforting. Freedom in its simplest form.)_

He firsts meets Lancelot Du Lac when he arrives at the bar Merlin's aunt, Nimueh, owned. It is small and not well known but Merlin loves it more that Arthur will truly know, loves being surrounded by family and friends in a familiar location. It's hard to describe, at first, the rage and envy that boils in his blood at the sight of the man laughing along with Merlin. Merlin, who looks more carefree than Arthur had seen him in months, since Arthur stopped being a part of _Merlin and Arthur _but instead _Merlin and Arthur (And her.) _He has no right to such feelings and hypocrisy has never been his favorite thing in the world, yet it still swells as Merlin meets his eyes, waves, and yet does not move an inch from the man standing behind the bar.

_(Merlin gets his first job offer as an architect when they're twenty four. It's a high improvement to his job at the bar and babysitting his five year old cousin Mordred and they celebrate with Morgana, Drake, and Leon at a local club until they cannot move from all the energy spent on dancing and laughing. The next day Arthur and Merlin spend locked up in their flat and no one asks where they were the next day.)_

It's been nearly a year since that night and Arthur still sneaks away into the late of night, searching for something in the mouth of his lover he never truly finds. It might be redemption, or perhaps reason for why they do what they do, but all he finds is guilt and sorrow and _Arthur, Arthur, yes, please. _It's been four months since Lance came and sometimes Arthur thinks it serves him right. He doesn't know how Merlin feels when it comes to Lance, and maybe he doesn't want to, but Lance is nothing but sincere longing when around Merlin and it hurts more than it should when, at times, Merlin seems to forget his presence when around him.

_(Merlin meets Gwen his first week into the job. He introduces them two weeks later and Arthur thinks she's nice enough and pretty as well, though Arthur doesn't have much of an opinion on that particular subject. Instead he focuses on the way Merlin beams at the mention of his new friend and can't help but smile along with him, too. If Gwen is truly as marvelous as Merlin claims, maybe she would do a world of good for the both of them.)_

He doesn't know why he asks it, why the words bubble uncontrollably past his lips as he watches Merlin sketch out a design for a new museum being added to the city. Never less the words escape. "Do you think it's possible to be in love with two people at the same time?" He does not have himself in mind as he asks this for he knows Gwen is nothing more that lust, illusions, and the old taboo of _forbidden. _Instead Lance and Merlin come to mind, Lance's eyes yearning and wanting as he gazes upon Merlin. A part of him hopes that Merlin's expression flashes guilty, that he has some justification for the past year. Instead Merlin continues to gaze down at his paper, expression neutral as something in his eyes broke even more. He continues to draw and only utters a single word. "Who?" Arthur's eyes widen, his mind wondering how Merlin could take the question so wrongly. But then Merlin looks up at him and Arthur knows, more than anything, that Merlin deserves the truth, even if it is not love that Arthur feels for Gwen. When he says her name Merlin does not seem surprised, only impossibly more hurt. Merlin gets up slowly and leaves the house. Arthur waits for hours for something, anything, before he falls asleep on the couch.

_(Arthur has his first real conversation with Gwen a month into Merlin and hers friendship. Arthur discovers that Gwen is wonderful and all that Merlin claims and is pleasantly surprised by the new friendship he strikes up with her. Merlin practically radiates happiness at them getting along and it makes things all the better for Gwen and Arthur both love seeing Merlin so ecstatic.)_

When Arthur wakes up it is to an empty flat. Merlin's stuff is gone and Merlin's key lies on the nightstand by the bed. He should have expected it for he had known that Merlin would not forgive him this, not this time. All the same it still hurts, so much not even he can comprehend it fully. It was only ironic that Gwen texts him at that time, his phone vibrating irritatingly in his jeans. He doesn't read his message as simply her name written across the screen makes his skin crawl and bile rise in his throat. He throws the phone against the wall, not at all satisfied as if cracks into two as it falls to the wooden floor. He doesn't leave the apartment for a week after that, spending all his time trying to find some trace of Merlin in the apartment. He doesn't go to find him, knows it would only be rubbing salt into the wounds for Merlin, yet he longs to. When he finally does manage to leave the apartment his hair is greasy and his eyes lined with bags. No one asks where he was this time, either.

_(A year into Gwen and Arthur's friendship he shows up at her doorstep. His cheeks are flushed and his eyes glint irritably and its familiar enough territory for her to know that has had a fight with Merlin and needs a refuge so he won't go back and say something he'll regret. He wonders, briefly, when she became his confidant instead of Merlin's. This thought fades into other more angry ones as he enters the living room. Neither remember how it happens, but words sputtered angrily in the kitchen become groping hands and filthy kisses within a half an hour.)_


End file.
